A California man sued a restaurant in federal court, accusing it of discrimination for leaving racial epithets on his receipts. Weeks before the case was set to be heard by a jury, the restaurant and the customer reached a settlement with undisclosed terms.

By now, there’s a chance you are one of the million or so people who have already watched the viral-buzzworthy-internetty-whatever YouTube clip of the dog that apparently works at a veterinarian, where it takes a printout from the printer, takes it to the assistant, who staples a receipt to the page, and then brings the whole thing to the customer.

One would think that by this point in the internet’s existence that employees at any sort of business that puts customers’ names on receipts might be aware of the fact that putting a potentially offensive nickname, description or slur on said receipts is probably nowhere near as hilarious as it initially seems.

The greeters aren’t the only ones at Walmart who demand your receipt. If you’ve registered for your wedding or other gift-lavishing occasion at there, know this: Wally World treats registry returns without a gift receipt as returns without a receipt. Even though they’ve got your registry right there, showing that someone else bought the item for you and precisely who bought it. Nope, being a registry item isn’t good enough. Reader Chris shared his sad tale, which ends with him being stuck with an air compressor and an awful lot of Walmart gift cards.

Airlines play the lowball game when they lose your luggage, offering paltry compensation and making it hard for you to get a fair value for your lost items. It demands a bit of an anal mentality but you can help yourself if you’ve saved the receipts for everything in your baggage, writes the Airfarewatchdogblog.

Next time you return an item to Walmart using a gift receipt, make sure to check your change. You could be getting less than you deserve and not even know it, reports CBS Sacramento. The problem is if the item goes on sale after it was bought. Poorly trained cashiers will refund the sale price instead of the original price. And because gift receipts are generally set up so that they don’t list the price the item was bought for, the person making the return isn’t even aware that they should be getting more back.

Our smart-shopping colleagues over at ShopSmart magazine recently noticed a promising trend at some high-end retailers: stores e-mailing your receipt to you rather than printing it out on old-fangled paper. Stores trying it out include Apple Stores, Nordstroms, Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, and a few Whole Foods stores.

When buying someone a gift at Target, always, always, always ask for and give a gift receipt. It’s useful not only when the gift is the wrong size or something the recipient doesn’t like or need, but also when it’s defective. Kekoa’s daughter received a bicycle from Target for her last birthday, a gift from her grandparents. Some parts were missing from the box, but employees at the local Target were helpless and unhelpful because the family didn’t have a receipt.

Rick is the Gandhi of receipt-check deniers. He writes in with a story of how he bought a 37 inch TV from Walmart and was able to successfully say no to the receipt checker blocking his way with his body. Rick did this by calmly and reasonably explaining his position to the assistant manager who showed up and by ignoring everyone around him who was trying to provoke him. Sometimes the quietest voice speaks the loudest.

When Eric bought a hat at Sears, the receipt printer unspooled in the manner of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of one’s shoe. Included along with the record of his transaction was a customer service survey and several pointless coupons.

When giving or receiving gifts from Target, keep careful track of the gift receipt. If you don’t, the store’s policies might cause you to lose some money, then feel some rage. That’s what happened to Chris when he exchanged a set of sheets that were the wrong size. Even though he swapped them for a smaller (and thus cheaper) set, he had to pay Target extra for the privilege.

Apparently, at one Nebraska Pizza Hut, complaining about a botched order makes you a bitch. When one customer called to complain about her order, she received a credit for free pizza. That pizza arrived with a special message on the receipt: “CAREFUL THIS GAL IS A BITCH.” She chose not to eat the pizza that came with that message, afraid it had been tampered with.

Most Consumerist readers would guess that it’s unlikely that the people at Best Buy will be inviting us over for dinner anytime soon. So it’s a nice surprise to see the company actually thanking us for a story.

You might remember the story from last week in which a Burger King customer was less than pleased when he looked at his receipt and saw that his order number had been replaced with the words “FUCK YOU”. Now comes news that the employee responsible for the F-bomb and her manager have been given the sack.

Jeff says since his local grocery stores put Similac on sale, his daughter hasn’t been able to get the full price back for the recalled Similac she returned because she doesn’t have her receipts. Without proof that she bought it before it went on sale, they will only refund her the sale price. “Who saves grocery receipts?” he writes. “My daughter was out $40 with everything she returned and repurchased a different product.”